1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to sailboats and, more particularly, pertains to a sailboat luff system including a longitudinal one-piece extruded luff member for snapping onto the forestay or headstay and for receiving the beaded leading edge of jibs fore and aft with respect to the forestay or headstay of the sailboat. A combination of the extruded luff member, the feeder and the prefeeder provides a high-tech system for feeding and supporting sails, especially jibs, about the forestay-headstay.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Representative patents of the prior art include the Lagerquist U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,802,373 and 4,340,005. These prior art devices would fasten around the headstay or forestay of a sailboat and would tend to come loose, based on either mechanical breakdown such as general wear and tear or based on the high torque involved during sailing. The locking grooves of the Lagerquist patents did not always function well after usage during an extreme amount of torque and/or tension during sailing, especially at high winds.
Stearn in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,851,608 and 3,851,609 discloses a stream-stay and a two-groove headstay respectively. Particularly, U.S. Pat. No. 3,851,609 of Stearn discloses a structure which still depends on a mechanical means for securing the double-groove headstay onto the forestay-headstay. This provided a mechanical securing system which was subject to mechanical breakdowns as described above.
One of the problems with the prior art headstays is that the headstays were very expensive and were usually shipped in continuous lengths which had to be joined together at the boat yard, especially for the larger sailing vessels. Joining together of the headstays was not only expensive but left a mechanical joint which was subject to fatigue and breakdown, as well as wear and tear on the sail. Further, the shipping costs were prohibitive in that boxes of twenty feet or so in length had to be shipped by common motor freight carrier or the like and this was particularly expensive for an item which hardly weighed any physical weight but which consumed a large amount of volume when shipped in a carton or box.
Headstays were originally designed in Sweden and fashioned of wood. Prior art headstays carried a single luff bread or a luff rope in the forward edge of the jib. Later, prior art advanced to using two wire forestays where the jibs were fixed by clips known as hanks. Then, the prior art advanced to extruded aluminum systems, although this was very expensive. The art was then advanced by the Stearn patents and the Lagerquist patents.
The present invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by providing a sailboat luff system including a one-piece flexible PVC plastic longitudinal extruded luff member, feeder secured thereto, and a prefeeder secured to a spacer below the feeder for jib sails. The extruded luff member can be rolled in approximately a one-yard to one-meter diameter, is easily worked with and snaps on to the headstay-forestay extremely easily with a flick of the fingers.